That is a long post. Actually I agree with ALMOST all of it. :)
One exception. You bought into the hijacked meaning of Conspiracy Theory. Conspiracies happen, frequently. Theory does not mean truth, so you don't have to believe them. In fact you should challenge them.
It was one of my hijacked words (it's actually two words) in my word hijacking 3.0 post. Check it out and get back to me on conspiracy.
That aside I do have a funny account of my first few weeks on steemit.
In one of the early weeks I ran into a post of a guy posting the steem logo and showing how it had 666 in it. He was also a flat earther. I totally thought his post was satirical. I have a goal to always be civil to people if I can. I failed this time. I thought it was a satirical post so I joined in the comments from that perspective totally extending the joke and the humor. A little way into a few back and forth comment / reply trades I realized he was completely serious in that initial blog post. I apologized explaining I would likely not have said anything had I known he was being serious. I apologized for attacking his beliefs, he gracefully accepted, and I went my own way.
I'd heard of people believing the world is flat. I just had never encountered one before. There are also some people on steemit that don't think SPACE (as in outside of the planet) is real. :)
As to conspiracy as a religion. Humans love to turn anything into a religion. Skepticism can even become religious when it become so rigid that they will not change their mind and are even falling towards the not so flat earth.
Humans can literally turn anything into a religion. All it takes is cognitive dissonance and refusal to accept change.
This is definitely true of some conspiracy theorists as well. There are some that will believe every conspiracy theory they hear. There are others that still believe some conspiracy theories may have elements of truth to them, or they may not.
We also know that often the official narrative is actually a conspiracy theory as well. :) I explain that in the blog post I linked above.
As I mentioned in the post; genuine criminal conspiracies, bear no resemblance to Conspiracy Theories.
Cg
What criteria do you use to distinguish between the two. I will read your post again, I do not remember seeing the criteria though it may be there. You don't need to answer right away, I'll reread the post and see if I missed that. I'll let you know by replying to this comment again if I still have questions.
Here's the quote from the end, I kept it brief, because the point of the article wasn't to distinguish between conspiracy theory and fact; however I did give it a few paragraphs.
Cg
That is actually false. Not to mention an absolute.
Rather than rehashing the many cases this has not been true. I'll link to some sources and completely avoid Alex Jones. He is definitely biased and has an agenda. Remember all it takes for an absolute to be proven false is when you find a single case where it was false.
5 US national security-related conspiracy theories that turned out to be true - www.businessinsider.com
Seven bizarre conspiracy theories which turned out to be true - indie100.independent.co.uk
6 Conspiracy Theories That Turned Out To Be True - news.yahoo.com
Now for me to simply say you must believe me because these websites say it is so is an Appeal to Authority. Those are but stepping stones for you doing your own research.
You should not believe me because I say it, just like I will not believe you simply because you say it. Those are both appeals to authority. I have no authority over anyone but myself.
I guess Edward Snowden can come home then. Since he proved quite a few conspiracy theories when he blew the whistle. :) Yes the theories existed prior to him blowing the whistle.
So you are continuing and discussing your idea based around the hijacked misuse of the words?
If you are basing your argument on misuse of words and inaccurate things then perhaps you do believe there never had been a proven conspiracy theory. Religions like to misuse words and dwell in absolutes as well.
If you look at the definition of the word there have been MANY conspiracy theories that turned out to be true going way back in history.
I will agree that MOST conspiracy theories are not proven to be true.
I will not agree to the absolute of ALL or NEVER though (you used EVER). All it takes is one case where that is not true for the absolute to be dead where it was written or said. There are far more than one that have been proven.
I'm replying to you here because our reply tree has finished, so please make a new comment if you want to reply; I'm enjoying this :-)
I knew you were going to reference those; however there is a stark difference with those conspiracy theories. They were all theories AFTER the fact, and they were all being investigated on a journalistic level. They weren't just random people making stuff up that later proved to be true.
Sometimes absolutes work, as they are so close to the truth you can call it fact. For instance, it maybe possible for the sun to suddenly quantum tunnel to another part of the galaxy. However I can confidently say, that will never happen; sure it might do, but it's such an infinitesimally small chance, I'm going to say never.
Cg